Campaign delivery, product launches and customer engagement.....the World Cup is upon us!

The build-up to any World Cup is an extremely busy time for any brand in the sports betting industry, but with just eight days between the final Premier League fixture, and England’s first group game, the timelines are much shorter, and the preparation much more intense. Jon Riley, PR and Outreach Manager at bet365, shares with us what he and his colleagues have been working on to promote the 2022 World Cup.

Finding time to pen this article this week has been a challenge in itself. I and the wider Marketing Services team are undergoing an intense week of campaign delivery, product launches and customer engagement ahead of Sunday’s opening game of the World Cup. Qatar v Ecuador may not be the most glamorous opening match the World Cup has ever seen, but for us, it marks a flagship moment, and one we’ve been working towards for a long time.

In the weeks building up to the tournament, bet365, in association with?XLMedia Plc?and?Censuswide, has surveyed thousands of football fans worldwide, to discover their thoughts and opinions ahead of Sunday night's first group game. Those results shaped the first ever #FanNationSurvey, with news articles populating our new news sites across UK and Ireland, Europe, South America, North America and Australia.

The survey has thrown up some attention grabbing headlines, for example, did you know that almost 90% of USA soccer fans surveyed think that the?#USMNT?is going to lift the trophy in the final? This is considerably lower for fans of the?#ThreeLions, with just under half believing that football is finally?#cominghome!?These headlines have steadily picked up media attention across the globe, both in digital editorial and social media, and we look forward to sharing more of the results with our followers around the world.

Going back a couple of paragraphs and I think it’s worth just giving a shout-out to James Clark and the whole bet365 News Team who have created a World Cup hub to be proud of, as part of the wider launch of our best-in-class news site. With daily interviews, updates, previews and video betting content, it will be my first port of call every day throughout the World Cup. bet365’s reputation as the innovator of In-Play betting is well known, and finally, we have a pre-event destination for customers that is as innovative, exciting and engaging as our world-renowned product.

On that note, it wouldn’t be a major football tournament without a product launch to accompany it, and for this year’s renewal, we haven’t disappointed. The bet365 Tournament Predictor went live on Friday 11th November with players invited to predict the outcome of the World Cup, from the group stages all the way up to the final. The free-to-play game was released in partnership with Incentive Games, a long-standing partner of bet365. A mouth-watering ￡ 1 million jackpot is available for correctly predicting the entire tournament, while the top-scoring user will claim ￡100,000. The top 10,000 users will share prizes worth ￡250k. Not bad for a free-to-play game.

Over?a million players have already entered their predictions, so why not give it a try?

Sticking with Incentives brings us on to ‘4 Scores’. ‘4 Scores’ does exactly what it says on the tin: offering users prizes for predicting four scores. bet365 successfully launched the ‘6 scores Challenge’ at the start of the 2022/23 Premier League season, with hundreds of thousands of players taking on the prediction challenge each weekend.

During the World Cup, prizes of up to ￡250 are on offer each day, but users don’t have to get every prediction right to win – with three correct predictions earning ￡10, and ￡2.50 awarded to those with two correct forecasts.

The traders inside 365 Towers are carrying out their final warm-ups for the tournament, stretching and limbering up ahead of 64 matches of passionate international football. The full suite of bet365 soccer offers will be running throughout the tournament with Bet Boosts, 2 Goals Ahead Early Payout, Accumulator Bonus, Bore Draw Money Back, Extra Time Extra Chance and Substitute Guarantee all available to eligible customers. The trading team are the beating heart of everything we do at bet365 and allows us marketing types to get a bit creative. And sharing those markets, odds, boosts, bet builders and promotions are our social media teams.

With teams based around the world, focusing on their localised audience, hopefully, if you’re following bet365 you’ll have already seen some of our pre-tournament social media content, particularly the World Cup Discussions Shows. Make sure you give our channels a follow so as not to miss out on any bespoke promotions throughout the tournament.

All that’s left to say is to wish all of our customers a happy and enjoyable World Cup, and fingers crossed we’re treated to a winter festival of brilliant football.